The Message a Card May Bring

Don't you just love receiving a card no matter what the occasion is? 

Greg would always ask what I wanted for my birthday, and I would tell him, I wanted a card or something where he would tell me what I meant to him.  I don't think he understood that by simply giving me a card that said "happy birthday", I would know that he cared. 

My friend, Jessica, would give me a hand made card for my birthday, and those were the best.  I would hang it up in my room for months after the occasion, even in college.  It was hard always to throw it away eventually.

Cards are so expensive, so I would never include them in gifts, but the message in cards always have the right words for every occasion.  I have recently found that there are several websites that have wording for cards, so it makes it that much easier to make your own card.  I always see blogs with ideas to make your own stationary, and I think they are so cute, but who has the time for that.  Well, it turns out that I actually find it sort of relaxing because it reminds me of my scrapbooking days.

Greg and I were invited to Derek and Cala's engagement party this weekend, and I wanted to make them a card.  The theme of the party was "Eat, Drink & Be Married" and everyone was to bring their favorite wine to share.  We decided to also give them a bottle and a wine vacuum pump. 

I still have several scrapbooking supplies that I dug through, and found some paper to match for the card that I had in mind.

I found the following message online to use:

wherever life may lead you
may you always find hope and happiness
in each others eyes…
comfort and warmth in each others arms…
love and laughter in each other’s hearts
and precious moments to share together.

 congratulations on your engagement

Then, I decided to give them some advice.  I came up with these on my own.

o Try to be loving in all of your actions and words.
o Let the little things go and choose your battles.
o Talk about everything.
o Plan date nights every so often.
o Understand when your spouse needs his or her own space.
o And, most importantly, there is nothing that a little wine and laughter can’t fix.



I printed these out on the computer, cut all the sheets up, and then glued them together.  I wrote "love always" on the front and glue some paper behind it so it would stick out a little.

And there you go!  So easy, and I'm sure Derek and Cala will love it!
We had a fun time at the party too.

New Kitchen Table

Yes, that's right!  We have a new kitchen table, but maybe I shouldn't call it new.  The previous owner's had a glass table that we liked because it allowed the light to shine through the room.  We were using a small table that Rachael had in her apartment, and it was really small and uncomfortable to sit at when we had friends over.  We found this table on Craigslist, and after driving an hour to take a look at it, I just couldn't say no, although Greg had his reservations.  But like most of our projects, Greg doesn't have the vision that I do of what it will look like at the end.  Greg was checking out the quality of the chairs, and I was trying to imagine how it would look in the room.  The hardware was all different on the chairs and they weren't level.  All things that could be fixed!  This is why we work well together...

Visually, the table looked good from the beginning, but there was still a lot of work to be done.

I've always wanted to recover the seat cushion of a chair because it looks so easy, but let me tell you, it's not that simple...

We picked up the table on our way to Columbia on Saturday, and we arrived back at home around 11 PM.  Immediately, we started disassembling the chairs, and I started wiping them down.  I should have taken some pictures of the dirty paper towels.  They were disgusting!

The chairs had a black fabric cover over the seat, which wasn't done well, but I could see why they recovered the original chair.  Again... DISGUSTING!  We called it a night at 2 AM.  The next morning, we made a list of new hardware to buy at Lowe's, and we were going to stop by JoAnn's to pick up new foam for the cushioning and fabric to recover it in. After getting back from running errands on Saturday, Greg started switching out the hardware, and I tackled taking out all of the staples.  There were so many!

These staples were all from just 1 chair!

There were stains everywhere!

Meanwhile, Chase is jumping over everything, so excited from all the choas in the house.  Anything new that is brought in to our house, Chase is all over it making sure it's okay to stay.  I tried keeping him off all the dirty cushions so he wouldn't catch some sort of disease, but that is what ultimately made him happy, so I couldn't resist.  Please don't report me for animal cruelty. 

Next, we cut the new foam to match the shape of the chairs.  We used the old form as a pattern.  Greg kept telling me to keep Chase off of the foam because he didn't want him to scratch it up since he was running around like a maniac.  Sure enough, we took a break, and Miss Abby found a spot to make herself comfortable.  Chase said it wasn't fair.

We cut the fabric around the seat, placed the foam on top of it, and then Greg stood on top of the wood to weigh down the foam and pulled the fabric around it as I stapled. I thought I would put in less staples, but I don't know if that is possible in order to have a nice look from the front.  We then finished up by stapling in a black fabric to give the bottom a finished look. 

 And here is the final product! So, covering chair cushions was probably the easiest project that we had taking us only 3 days to finish.  It was still a little hard on us (my hands were sore from stapling and Greg's legs hurt from the constant squatting position of weighing down the foam and pulling the fabric).

There is a lot of brown now.  I wanted to eventually change the basksplash above the countertops to add in some color and make it more modern, but everything matches so well now, so that may have to wait for our next house.  I will eventually replace the curtains. 

Chase's 2nd Birthday Gift

It's been too long since my last post.  We've taken a break from all the projects and have had some fun weekends hanging out with friends and going back home for Easter.  This weekend was packed with projects, so I'll finally have some material to post about.  I have finally told myself that this blog can't just be about our projects because Greg is getting tired of me continuously adding to the list.  My New Years Resolution was to never start a project if I couldn't finish it in 2 weeks.  It's not going so well.

The first story I have to share is that we are upcoming on Chase's 2nd Birthday!  Greg and I were out on Saturday morning to raid the local garage sales, and we came home spending only $1.  A woman was getting rid of a cat scratching post, and I snatched it up because those range from $60 to $100 at Petsmart.  Greg and I said that we were going to make one before, but again, that would just be one more project to add to the list.  One post is pretty ripped up, so I have some carpet samples at work that we are going to wrap around the one post, and it will be as good as new.

When I brought it in the house, Abby was all excited from the new smells, and Chase sprinted upstairs and hid under our bed.   I carried it upstairs and set it at the top of the stairs.  Chase finally crawled out and cautiously went up to his present and sniffed it for a bit, and then began to play.  He can't resist anything with feathers or tassels on them.

I don't know if I'll be able to top this present next year...

Abbasaurus

This is alarmingly close to our long lost friends, the Dinosaurs.  Could dogs be tied into the same family as dinosaurs?  Abby seems to think so.

We cut down another layer of tree branches on our pine trees this weekend, and Abby found her love of the new tree branch growths that stem from the ends of the branches.  Greg was cutting up some branches when he caught Abby sneaking some snacks.